Old Concord Cemetery
January 6, 2024
In the middle of a farmers field just a few miles north of Petersburg, Illinois, flies a tattered American flag over a small clearing of farmland on an hill. The Old Concord Cemetery—sometimes known as Goodpasture Grave Yard or Berry Cemetery—is not an easy place to get to.
Located a quarter mile off the nearest single-lane road, and accessible by a grassy trail between two fields, this graveyard is filled with veterans of the Revolutionary War. Robert Armstrong from North Carolina died September 9, 1834. Next to Robert is the marker of his son, Jack Armstrong, the roughest of the rowdy Clary Grove gang, who famously fought Abraham Lincoln to a draw in a wrestling match in New Salem, Illinois. The battle became the stuff of legend. Jacob Short, Lincoln’s friend; Joshua Short, Revolutionary War soldier; and John James Rutledge, one of the founders of New Salem.
A retired reporter for The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Illinois), Blake Bakke, visited Old Concord Cemetery with Bill Harmening, a former Menard County sheriff’s deputy. “There are 244 people buried here,” Harmening said as they walked around the cemetery. “People here are lost to history. There must be a lot of stones missing out here.”
So, on this overcast and cold January day, we ventured off-road, entered the cemetery passed its wire fence, trekked up the hill, and found that most of the stones had fallen. Some had been laid down face up so that they may still be read, and others are broken or rest in pieces strewn about.
The most famous of those buried here is Ann Mayes Rutledge, the woman who was said to have captured Abraham Lincoln’s heart before he met Mary Todd, his future wife. Ann was buried here after her death on August 25, 1835.
According to Ann’s biography by Kit and Morgan Benson:
“Abraham Lincoln’s First Love. Her death at the age of 22 led to Lincoln’s first known severe depression. Born Ann Mayes Rutledge near Henderson, Kentucky, she was the third of ten children born to Mary and James Rutledge. She was described as bright and beautiful, with auburn hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion. She had a positive character, and many people described her as sweet and angelic, beloved by nearly all who knew her. 1832, young Abraham Lincoln boarded at [the Rutledge] inn, where he got to meet her. She was then engaged to John MacNamar, who, in the summer of 1832, left to see his parents in New York, promising to marry Ann upon his return within a year. After leaving town, he disappeared, and despite many inquiries, no trace of him was ever found. Eventually, a relationship developed between Ann and young Abraham Lincoln, who was studying for his law degree. They appeared to be very genuinely in love, but in 1835, Ann contracted typhoid fever, and after a prolonged illness, she died that summer. After her death, Lincoln confided to Mentor Graham [ New Salem schoolmaster ] that he felt like committing suicide, but Graham reassured him that “God has another purpose for you.”
Standing in this field, I recall first learning about Ann Rutledge—and her death—forty years ago while reading Lincoln - The Unknown, by Dale Carnegie published in 1932:
“The weeks that followed were the most terrible period of Lincoln’s life. He couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t eat.”
“Day after day he walked five miles to the Concord Cemetery, where Ann was buried. Sometimes he sat there so long that his friends grew anxious, and went and brought him home. When the storms came, he wept, saying that he couldn’t bear to think of the rain beating down upon her grave.”
“The old Concord Cemetery, where Ann Rutledge was buried, is a peaceful acre in the midst of a quiet farm, surrounded on three sides by wheat-fields and on the fourth by a blue-grass pasture where cattle feed and sheep graze. The cemetery is overgrown now with brush and vines, and is seldom visited by man. In the springtime the quails make their nests in it and the silence of the place is broken only by the bleating of sheep and the call of the bob-white.”
According to author Harvey Lee Ross in The Early Pioneers and Pioneer Events of the State of Illinois, Lincoln told friends:
“‘My heart is buried in the grave with that dear girl. He would often go and sit by her grave and read a little pocket Testament he carried with him.”
Ann’s grave rests on top of the hill between graves of her father John James Rutledge who also died in 1835 (missing its marker), and her brother David Rutledge who died in 1842, a decade after serving with Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hawk War. There are many Rutledge’s still resting here.
After Lincoln’s death in 1865, stories about the relationship between Ann and Abe increased. Ann lay in peace at Old Concord until May 15, 1890, when an undertaker, ambitious to sell lots in his new cemetery and to put Petersburg “on-the-map,” disinterred the dust that remained of Ann Rutledge, and moved it to the newly established Oakland Cemetery on the south edge of Petersburg.
For three decades, all that marked Ann’s grave at Oakland Cemetery was a rough stone marker with her name that is slowly eroding away. This stone was from her original resting place at Old Concord Cemetery and today still remains tucked away at the front of the plot at Oakland.
In January 1921, a granite monument was erected over this second grave. A portion of Rutledge’s Oakland gravestone reads, “I am Ann Rutledge who sleeps beneath these weeds, beloved of Abraham Lincoln, wedded to him, not through union, but through separation. Bloom forever o republic from the bust of my bosom.”
Also inscribed on this stone is the text of the poem Ann Rutledge, from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology—who himself is buried near her at Oakland.
His words are haunting:
“Out of me unworthy and unknown
The vibrations of deathless music!
‘With malice toward none, with charity for all.’
Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,
And the beneficent face of a nation
Shining with justice and truth.
I am Ann Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,
Beloved of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union,
But through separation.
Bloom forever, O Republic,
From the dust of my bosom”
Note: The actual 8th line of Masters’ verse reads “Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln.” The reason the words “in life” were omitted on Ann’s headstone is unclear.
Today, a new monument in Old Concord Cemetery marks the original burial site of Ann Rutledge, One side of the stone reads, “Original grave of Anna Mayes Rutledge, Jan 7, 1813 - Aug 25, 1835, Where Lincoln wept.” The inscription on the reverse side includes a quote from young Abe about him visiting Anns grave: “I cannot bear to think of her out there alone in the storm.”